World Literature

Alexandra Brostoff

“The Truth that Reality Obscures”

inTim O’Brien’s The Things They Carried

The past is never dead. It’s not even past. –William Faulkner

Fiction reveals truth that reality obscures. –Ralph Waldo Emerson

Introduction to Story – the “truth that reality obscures” ?

“Wait till you hear—” “You won’t believe—” “So this one time—” “Once upon a time—”

Does a day ever pass when you do not tell, hear, or read a story?

Think about it.

How much of our daily conversations, our daily lives, are dominated by stories?

Dictionary.com defines a story as “a narrative, either true or fictitious, in prose or verse.” Benjamin Franklin’s famed explanation echoes that stories “are designed to (a) inform, (b) persuade and/or (c) entertain the hearer or reader.” But this does not explain why. Why so many stories? Why this human dependency we have on plot and narrative?

Author Tim O’Brien remarks, “Stories are for joining the past to the future…Stories are for eternity, when memory is erased, when there is nothing to remember except the story.”

Poetic, isn’t it? But there is something problematic about O’Brien’s explanation, something that put Vietnam Veterans, not to mention historians ill at ease. O’Brien’s The Things They Carried is a conglomeration of short stories published in 1990 to a controversial critical response. Originally marketed as nonfiction, the book had to be pulled off shelves and remarketed as fiction. Why? Well, in short, the man lied. These graphic vignettes describing various soldiers’ experience of the Vietnam War,were not true. O’Brien embellished. O’Brien invented. But did O’Brien lie? Known for its metafictive play on the blurred boundary between fact and fiction, The Things They Carried is, as O’Brien defends, “for getting at the truth when the truth isn't sufficient for the truth.”But then, how does the attempt to reconcile the reality of experience (based on fact) with subjective representation (based on perspective) impact truth? How can we reconcile a collective, historical truth with an individualized, subjective one?

Over the next several weeks, we will attempt to articulate our relationshipswith what it means to tell a story—and ultimately, what it means to read one. What kind of timeless, transitory power does story have over humanity? What kind of power do stories have over you? Can fiction be true? “Literature is the question minus the answer,” says Roland Barthes, so let us embark on a path paved with questions, the path that lines a paper-thin frontier between fact and fiction, reality and representation, story and truth.

Interdisciplinary Unit Objectives

Students will be able to:

  1. Identify, analyze, compare, and contrast the role storytelling plays in history and literature. Students will analyze how individual perspective impacts the one’s understanding of fact vs. fiction.
  1. Identify and critically evaluate authorial bias, authorial intention, and target audience as they apply both mutually and divergently to in history and literature.
  1. Critically examine the sources of how and psychology of in particular the Vietnam War is remembered in the 20th century considering themes of individual vs. collective memory.
  1. Design and explain rationalization for memorial commemorating an assigned event from 20th century U.S. foreign policy. Compose a rationalization justifying how the visual design pays homage to history.

LiteratureUnit Objectives

Students should already be able to:

  1. Identify and explicate the significance of symbolism to a work as a whole.
  1. Identify and explicate the development of theme.
  1. Identify and interpret authorial intention.
  1. Explain and analyze how the interplay between author, narrator, characters, and reader impacts authorial distance. Students should furthermore have familiarity with assessing the relationship between unreliable narration and authorial distance in a text.
  1. Recognize the literary techniques that characterize postmodern literature.
  1. Be familiar with critical theory and approaches to the critical analysis of literature.

Students will be able to:

  1. Discuss the impact of perspective upon truth. Students will by extension explore and reflect upon the resulting distinction between fact vs. fiction.
  1. Mimic O’Brien use of literary techniques to develop “story-truth” vs. “happening-truth” in the form of personal essay.
  1. Explicate and analyze how metafiction contributes to authorial distance in postmodern narrative.
  1. Compose a method-to-meaning expository analysis.
  1. Articulate the significance of storytelling in regards to representations of individual vs. collective experience.
  1. Design a memorial commemorating an assigned event from20th century U.S. foreign policy. Compose a rationalization justifying how the visual design pays homage to history.

Unit Guiding Questions

  1. How is our conception of truth contingent upon perspective and other narrative techniques?
  1. What role does truth play in fiction? Can fiction be “true”? If so, how? Does literature communicate truth that cannot be conveyed in other ways?
  1. Can metafiction rationalize paradox? If so, to what extent?
  1. How does storytelling represent individual experience? How does storytelling represent collective experience? Can one representation be judged as “truer” than another?
  1. Ultimately, how do fact vs. fiction come to define our conception of history?

Unit Layout

Week 1: Background Preparation

  1. Close analysis of YusefKomunyakaa’s “Facing It” as it responds to the Vietnam War Memorial. Exploration of various meanings of the title “Facing It,” which will lead into a reflection on the nature of facing the facts, facing history, and facing ourselves.
  1. Gallery walk paired with recording of YusefKomunyakaa reading “Facing It.” Students will each choose one photo and compose a letter addressed to the subject of the photo.
  1. A brief introduction to the psychology of war, including excerpts fromLt. Colonel Dave Grossman’sOn Killing, an overview ofthe nature of defense mechanisms, and PTSD.
  1. A brief overview of geography of Vietnam and the history of the war based on excerpts from The American Place Theater’s Literature to Life series’ keynote guide to reading The Things They Carried.
  1. Biography of Tim O’Brien and review of the literary techniques that characterize a postmodern text
  1. Journaling assignment distributed and explained.

Week 2: Symbolism and Dimensions of Conflict

  1. Reading and analysis of “The Things They Carried” and consequential creative writing assignment “The Things I Carry.”
  1. Dimensions of conflict (political, social, emotional) in “On the Rainy River.”

Week 3: “Truer than the Truth”?

  1. Reading and analysis of “How to Tell a True War Story.” Students will split into two groups. Group one will compose a list of attributes characterizing a “true war story” with demonstrative examples from the text. Group two will compose a list exploring what “true war story” is not/does not do according to O’Brien’s definition, and identify examples from the text.
  1. O’Brien’s “The Man I Killed” and Thomas Hardy’s “The Man He Killed”
  1. Reading and analysis of “Speaking of Courage,” “Notes,” and “In the Field” with the defining question “which is a “true war story”? How does perspective impact truth?
  1. Method-to-meaning expository analysis paragraph identifying how O’Brien’s use of style, syntax, and other rhetorical device serve to construct meaning in the text.

Week 4: “Story-truth” vs. “Happening-Truth”

  1. “Good Form,” “story-truth,” and “happening-truth” graphic organizer. Apply definitions to other stories.
  1. “Story Truth” personal essay assignment.
  1. Finish book. Reflect on O’Brien choice of final chapter. How does this illuminate or fail to illuminate the theme of the text? Ultimately, what thematic messages does the text suggest?

Week 5: Criticism, Synthesis, and Assessment

  1. A critical examination ofThe Things They Carriedin research-based expert groups. Critical theories/approaches will include:
  1. Mythological/Archetypical Approach (text-focused)
  1. New Criticism (Formalist Approach, text-focused)
  1. Historical/New Historical/Cultural Approach (society/context-focused)
  1. Feminist/Gender Criticism (society/context-focused)
  1. Biographical/Psychoanalytic Theory (author-focused)
  1. Reader Response Theory (reader-focused)
  1. Silent dialogue graffiti synthesizing O’Brien’s thematic exploration of storytelling with that of other authors, historians, and critics.
  1. In one 80+ minute class, students write two in-class essays based on the following prompts (students choose and write about two out of the three). In writing workshops and individual conferences, students then use the two essays to develop one cohesive 5-6 paper responding to major concepts presented in the unit. In-class essay options include the following:
  1. What kind of truth does The Things They Carried convey? How does O’Brien convey this truth? How should this truth be conceived and received?
  1. 1989 AP Literature Prompt: In questioning the value of literary realism, Flannery O'Connor has written, "I am pleased to make a good case for distortion because I am coming to believe that it is the only way to make people see."Write an essay in which you "make a good case for distortion," as distinct from literary realism. Analyze how important elements of the work are "distorted" and explain how these distortions contribute to the effectiveness of the work.
  1. 2004 AP Literature Prompt: Critic Roland Barthes has said, “Literature is the question minus the answer.” Choose a novel or play and, considering Barthes’ observation, write an essay in which you analyze a central question the work raises and the extent to which it offers any answers. Explain how the author’s treatment of this question affects your understanding of the work as a whole.
  1. Interdisciplinary conclusion: Design a memorial commemorating an assigned event from20th century U.S. foreign policy. Compose a rationalization justifying how the visual design pays homage to history.